I really hate the term “vacation days.” I’m not going to Disneyland everytime I’m out of the office. Most of the time its stuff like having the HVAC technician over during their 4-hour service call window; taking my family member to have surgery; recovering from the flu/covid; taking a mental health day or catch-up day for weekday-only errands.
This might be where some of the missing 34% are not agreeing for more days. The label is part of the problem. Hell I want more vacation days so that I CAN squeeze an actual vacation in there.
The USA had a chance to start again and get so many things right. So why are they so backwards with some things?
We’ve had legally-protected paid leave in the UK for almost a century now. Granted, we were the first in the world, but most of Europe and many other countries now have similar protections. Many of which are more generous than the UK’s.
That’s not to mention the myriad of other laws and protections covering unfair dismissal (the “at will” system is fucking dystopian, sorry), a years paid maternity leave, statutory sick pay, mandatory employer pension contributions, working time regulations and mandatory redundancy pay. All of which have no federally-enforced equivalent.
I’m honestly a bit shocked that only 66% support PTO. Surely it’s a no-brainer?
Is it a size thing? Is the idea of looking out for each other just untenable in such a large, diverse place?
I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in a place where 34% of people have such an individualistic “I’ve got mine” mentality, that they don’t even support mechanisms that virtually every other developed country collectively agrees is the fucking minimum needed in order to live reasonable existence.
Just wanted to point out you don’t get 12 months paid maternity leave in the UK. Leave and pay have completely different rules so you have to think of them separately, even though they are intrinsically linked.
You are entitled to 12 months maternity leave, and in fact by law have to take the first 2 weeks (or 4 weeks for a factory worker) for health reasons. This is great but lots of women don’t take the full 12 months time because the last few months would often be unpaid so is not the main factor.
Statutory maternity pay, which is what you are guaranteed and what the government pays the company, is 90% of your average earnings for the first 6 weeks, then it is the lower of £172.48 or 90% of your average earnings, for the next 33 weeks. Notice thats not 52 weeks in total! The average is also based on a certain time before you know you’re pregnantso my wife got a bit screwed because of taking time off when changing job.
A lot of employers offer full paid maternity leave but it tends to be already better paying jobs or civil service jobs, and it’s for 6 or 9 months. Then it’s a reduced rate or even unpaid for last few months. There’s also some caveats like having to work there for a full year before getting full pay, depends on seniority etc, because it is down to company policy rather than legally required.
Paternity leave is up to 2 weeks leave but statutory pay is the lower of £172.48 or 90% of your average earnings. Again, better employers offer full pay for 2 weeks or more.
They introduced shared parental leave afew years ago but most people only saw the headline and didn’t realise you have to split out the pay, which is the lower of the two statutory amounts above. Good employers offer full pay for a few weeks but is very varied, even in “better” jobs. I wanted to take more shared parental leave time but would have to sacrifice my full pay to get it so could not afford it. My company at the time (well paid head office role at one of the largest banks in the UK) did not offer full pay for shared parental leave that is over paternity leave.
Most voters think its great because it works for them but actually there’s a lot of inequality/capitalism in it, and therfore much room for improvement.
Yes, it’s better than federally in America, and pregnancy/labour itself is completely free on the NHS so no costs on top but we should strive to be better, especially compared to a lot of continental European countries.
Our rules might be a good step up for you, especially as they’re in quite a capitalist society, but it should not be the end goal by any means!
I did consider including more detail about maternity etc in my comment but in the end thought it wasn’t material to my point. I’m glad you took the time to add some more nuance as an aside though. Thanks 👍
That’s still way better than what we get… My wife got 4 months paid maternity leave when our daughter was born, and she works for a big bank, so better benefits than a lot of people.
You have FMLA, which guarantees that you won’t be fired (once approved) for 12 weeks. The first part uses your vacation days (because, apparently, being out on maternity is a vacation and you won’t need anymore days once you’re back), the rest of it is unpaid. Once 12 weeks rolls around, you either come back or get fired.
The US had a strong labor movement before the 2nd world war and into the 1950s when union membership was at its highest and the middle class was thriving and wealth inequality was a fraction of what it is today. What killed it was the Cold war and the spectre of communism which was used by conservatives (there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans back then) as a bludgeon to effectively kill the labor movement over the following decades until Reagan finally put a stake through its heart in the 80s.
That’s the short version anyway. There’s obviously a lot more to it.
In any case, the good news is that a lot of people seem to be waking up and demanding change. Union membership is on the rise as are other encouraging signs. I’m way too jaded to be optimistic about it, but I’m not as pessimistic as I once was. My own union has won two strikes in the last 5 years, for example.
On the flipside, the left has managed to pretty thoroughly alienate a huge chunk of blue collar workers who should be their natural constituency, so that’s not great either.
We’re ruled over by a perverted form of Christianity Calvinism where your work equals your atonement towards god or some other bs. This also gets the libertarians all jizzed up because “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” mindset.
US has PTO, it is just much less than Europe.
The reason there are people who don’t support it is because of conservative shame culture. If you aren’t rich, it is because you are lazy. They don’t want to take anything away from the rich because they earned it and deserve it. If that means the worker suffers, then the worker should just work harder so they can be rich too.
Well they’d best join a union then, because those cunts upstairs aren’t just going to give it to them.
Although personally I’d rather work through August just to avoid millions of families with kids everywhere. Holidays are so expensive at that time of year.
Although personally I’d rather work through August just to avoid millions of families with kids everywhere. Holidays are so expensive at that time of year.
Here in Denmark
in most places at least, you can choose the times you want vacation. Some places to “force” their employees to take 3 weeks during june - august… but then you still got 3 other weeks you can sprinkle around the year. (a lot of other places dont care)
and yes, i know a lot of people who spend their main vacations in may, or september. My mother mostly travels in the off-months (hotels, plane tickets etc, are also cheaper)
The way the law works here is you get five weeks vacation every year and have a right (but not an obligation) to take four of those consecutive between June and August. You must however take four weeks of vacation every year, the rest you can save for up to five years (before you have to take them as well).
Oh, and to really blow your mind, if you get sick during vacation, those count as sick days and you get the vacation back.
I hope that this example can show that more humane treatment of workers is attainable and realistic. We were not given these rights by benevolent overlords; our parents, grandparents etc. fought for them, and so can you. Unionize!
Who could be against more free time!? The remaining 34% must think granting workers more vacation time is tantamount to communism.
I bet a good number of those people are the ones who get lots of vacation time already and are just pulling others down because they want to be treated better than average. It’s like how there’s people who oppose raising min wage because “they don’t want burger flippers to make the same pay as they do”. Crabs in a bucket mentality.
There’s a lot of Americans who sadly think that way. We see it with the student loan forgiveness efforts, too. They can’t be happy with others getting nice things unless they themselves are still somehow getting better things. To not mince words, they lack empathy and are selfish.
The same people who have Medicare and don’t believe in socialized medicine.
Baby boomers and the silent generation need to get dementia and gtfo
Now what percent want to fully be in Europe?
Because fuck what America is today.
Hi, me! I’m going to move to Europe within the next 6 years and never look back. Fuck this country, it’s not going to get any better any time soon. The daily lifestyle is just horrible.
If you can be self-employed and don’t have EU citizenship, look into DAFT.
The other 34% probably.
What the fuck is wrong with 34% of Americans?
There’s got to be a big chunk of that percentage that want MORE vacation time that Europe.
At least based on my sample size of 1.
I don’t want my company telling me when to spend my PTO? God forbid I’d rather have more days that I chose.
Edit: ITT a complete lack of reading comprehension or even an attempt at identifying rage bait survey questions and shitty writing.
I don’t want my company telling me when to spend my PTO?
Even if it actually worked that way, in what shithole reality is barely having any PTO at all preferable to having a shitload of it that you can only use at select times?
That’s not the question asked in the survey.
They don’t tell you that here in Europe? You’re free to spend your PTO when and where you wish, usually under the condition you at least take the legal minimum days per year. Companies get fined if they don’t meet those limits.
There are usually restrictions about what requests employers can deny. Of course you can imagine some situations in which you can’t have everyone leave when they wish (healthcare/police for instance). Of course there are shitty employers that try to abuse the exceptions and get away with it.
At my former (Dutch) employer I had to take the legal minimum 20 days each year, but the 5 extra days I could save and spend in the next 5 years.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.
I get 25 days + 13 federal. I don’t plan any of those in August.
That’s a super awesome vacation policy you are enjoying. Basically like they have in Europe.
It took me 16 years to get that much vacation, and they just took away pay for my holidays now. Store will be closed but they won’t be paying us.
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I don’t disagree that US policy is shit.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August.
It’s a shit article with rage bait that skips any actual attempt in analysis, to which OC makes an equally useless comment JUST NOT UNDERSTANDING and questioning what the fuck is wrong with those respondents. When in reality the article wasn’t read, the questions on the survey were never read, and they are just looking for that good old reddit amirite? I then answered with a simple, common answer to why a third of respondents might think a policy like ‘a month off in August’ might be dumb and here we are.
Replace like with “such as” or “for example”. Does it sound more sensible now?
👌
Yes, the author of the article and survey designer most definitely could have done a better job with language…
But they didn’t, yet here we are, this entire sub ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED that 34% of Americans could have had the audacity to answer no to the question.
Very cool. Everybody should get that.
It’s not like you have to take August off in most countries either. You can do it whenever it suits you.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August.
But not in the context of what OC was bitching about. I’m not sure which part of this is a stupid rage bait article is unclear to the general audience here.
That’s bit how it works in Europe/the UK either. I get 31 days I can book whenever I like, staffing levels permitting, then the eight bank holidays which are set days because they’re national holidays.
like a month of in August
Christ folks 🤦♂️ it’s right there just waiting for someone to read.
It’s the right to take a month off if that’s what you choose to do with your leave, not forced.
Then that should be communicated clearly instead of the current chosen language. Otherwise you end up with, and here is where we complete that full circle, 34% of people answering “no I don’t want that”, answering OCs question why someone would answer that way.
They’re probably mostly rich or retired, so they can take as much vacation as they want anyway.
I think there’s a lot of good old moralization going on out there. «Young people are getting lazy» etc. Especially from old rich people who got everything handed to them.
They’re probably employers.
